Seats onboard commercial passenger aircraft come in many different configurations. Indeed, many aircraft carry a number of different types of seats. For example they may carry a number of business class seats, and usually a larger number of economy class seats.
The standard price of a business class seat is higher than an economy class seat. This is primarily because a business class seat takes up much more floor space of the aircraft. Airlines may hence charge a premium for such seats.
Many business class seats now offer the ability for the seat to be reclined from a sedentary position to a fully lay flat position. In the lay flat position, the seat back, seat pan and for example an ottoman end up in a relationship with each other that presents a substantially flat surface. This allows a passenger to lie down and hence be more comfortable when resting or sleeping. WO 03/013903 (Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd) shows such a seat. US 2007/0040434 also shows a seat that can achieve this. However such seats consume a large footprint onboard the aircraft in order to offer one passenger such comforts. This means that there is less passenger density in a business seat class section of an aircraft.
The usual trade-off for airlines in offering passengers increased comfort is a reduction in passenger density. This is because comfort for a passenger is usually achieved by providing more personal space onboard the aircraft for that passenger. This usually reduces the number of passengers that can be carried by an aircraft. This is the primary reason why airlines charge more for business class seats compared to economy class seat. It may be argued that a reduced payload (e.g. number of passengers and their luggage) may result in fuel savings. However, the mechanisms of business class seats are usually complex and expensive and heavy. This offsets at least to some extent, any such fuel saving.
Economy class seats on long-haul flights are known to be used in manner that can allow a passenger to lie down. The armrests between seats in a row of seats may be able to be folded out of the way. When lying down, only one passenger then occupies that entire row by lying across all the seatpans of the seats in that row. This can usually only occur where the flight is not full as all the seats in that row may then be occupied by only one passenger.
Some airlines currently focus on trying to maximise an individual passengers comfort and personal space and also strive to isolate and insulate that passenger from other passengers as much as possible. Passengers are treated as individuals but on many flights, passengers travel as a group of people such as a family. They may want to interact with each other and feel comfortable resting in close quarters to each other. Or they may at least want the options for such.
Making an individual seat less individualised and more communal is counterintuitive to what the airline industry is currently trying to achieve. The seats do not allow for cooperation with each other. Indeed in business class, and in many other classes, cooperation is not a design factor because it usually means a loss of privacy.
Furthermore some groups of travelers may not be able to afford business class or cannot justify spending money on the price of business class tickets. For example where a family is traveling with young children who do not benefit from the extra space offered in business class, the parents will find it harder to justify a business class ticket.
Whilst airlines are cautious about offering seats in a lower class on a basis that it may cannibalize the sale of seats in another class, there has been a significant amount of seat development work done to offer space and privacy and comfort and service for business class. This has increased the separation of these qualities between business class and economy class because of the focus on business class seat development over economy class. There has generally been a lack of development in economy class seating to offer an increase is such qualities. Inflight entertainment systems, being an obvious exception to this.
Passenger seating technology in aircraft has necessarily developed as a separate technical field to that in other modes of transportation due to the significant technical, cost and spacing restraints which are unique to aircraft applications.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a seat and/or seating arrangement that is reconfigurable to offer a multifunctional zone that can promote shared use of a defined space by multiple passengers.
As used herein the term “and/or” means “and” or “or”, or both.
As used herein “(s)” following a noun means the plural and/or singular forms of the noun.
“contiguous” as used herein may be interpreted as being an abutting and contacting relationship or a non abutting relationship where a small but negligible gap may exist.
“window seat” as used herein denotes a seat of a row that is closest to the cabin wall adjacent the fuselage, whether there is physically a window adjacent that seat or not.